I
choose a topic called ‘Global Warming’ from Google Earth @ NOAA for this
assignment. The Google Earth format allowed me to scroll around the world, zoom on specific countries such as USA, Russia and UK and seasonal and annual temperature data more easily than ever before. We can see how much global warming has raised local temperatures in your area or elsewhere on the glove using Google Earth. The Google Earth interface shows how the globe has been split into latitude and longitude grid boxes. Clicking on a grid box reveals the area's annual temperatures, as well as links to more detailed downloadable station data.
Curious about how much global warming has caused temperatures around the winter Olympics venues near Sochi, Russia to rise? Just click on the grid in Google Earth and a graph pops up showing flat temperatures from 1900 to 1990 followed by a nearly 1°C rise over the past 25 years.
Wondering how much the area around London has warmed in recent
decades? The answer again is just a click away, and shows a similar rate of
warming to that near Sochi, Russia.
Wondering how much the area around New York City has warmed in recent
decades? The answer again is just a click away, and shows a rate of warming.
Currently, I am planning to implement Global
Warming project in my statistic class. The objective of this project is to
enhance students’ skills in statistical and mathematical modeling, particularly
modeling using polynomials of first through third degree. This project will
give the students a chance to explore in details some issues related to global
warming such as global average temperature raised, CO2 (carbon dioxide) and CH4 (methane) emissions. Using Global Average
Temperature data obtained from the Google Earth, students will learn to
calculate mean, standard deviation, variance, and construct a regression line
to predict temperature using SPSS software. I believe that the
Google Earth Layer will increase our students’ awareness of current issues such
as global warming and how they are related to mathematics and statistics hence 'visualizing math and statistics topics.'
Good find here! And by digging into the dataset of temperature (and their long-term trends impacted by AGW), you can definitely reach students, especially re-inforcing statistical concepts. (Let's face it, most of us are terrible at assessing risks and long-term trends intuitively, as behavioral economists and evolutionary psychologists have pointed out. Perhaps that's why so many Americans express doubt--or refuse entirely to see--climate change.) This looks like a strong resource, and I'll have a look at it too for my module on climate change for my LIB 200 capstone class.
ReplyDeleteOh. My. God!!! This is SO interesting. Science deniers beware! At the same time this is interesting, it is truly frightening. But perhaps it is exactly this kind of map and visualization that will ultimately click with people to get them to realize the very real phenomenon that is climate change. It snowed? So what? That doesn't mean the climate hasn't changed. And these screenshots and maps show that the change is very real. Thank you so much for finding this site and for sharing. Gosh, I always learn so much from reading everybody's posts.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that you're situating the learning of statistics in the context of an important social issue. A great way to increase students' engagement.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example of how visual data can be so powerful. The images and graphs have a strong impact.
ReplyDelete